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Putting it on the market was the smart thing to do. For some sentimental fool it would seem the perfect house—slate roof, diamond-pane windows and the kind of winding floor plan that attested to almost three hundred years of additions and improvements. His wife had always complained that it was too oldfashioned, and she hated to garden. He’d never taken her to the stripped-down, ultramodern flat in London where he spent most of his time. It would have suited her perfectly and she’d never even known it existed.
Funny, he never thought of his ex-wife by her name, only by her relationship to him. That was part of the problem. He’d chosen the perfect trophy wife and he’d never given a rat’s ass about her.
Annabelle. Annabelle Lawson—how could he have forgotten? But then, why should he remember? Women came and went through his shadowy life, some lived, some died. But in the end he forgot them, and he wasn’t going to let that change.
He better turn up the heat while he was here—it might improve the damp chill. He took the two steps down into the old kitchen. The Aga sat in solitary splendor at one end, and the stone hearth had been swept clean of ashes. He sat at the scarred old oak table, the one his wife had tried to replace with some upscale form of plastic, and stared out into the gathering darkness.
He heard her coming, of course, but she knew he would. Madame Isobel Lambert, his superior and current head of the Committee, seemed to know just about everything, including the fact that he’d recognize her from a distance and not kill her before he identified her.
“Moping, Peter?” she asked, pausing in the kitchen doorway. If it was anyone but Madame Lambert he would’ve said she did it for dramatic effect, but that was very small currency in Madame’s arsenal.
He leaned back in the wooden chair. “Have you ever known me to mope?” he asked in a steady voice.
“No. But then, I’ve never known you to fail in a mission before.”
“Is that what this is about? I thought I made a complete report while I was in London. I wouldn’t have left if I knew you still had questions.”
“Your report was crystal clear in every detail, as it always is,” Madame Lambert said, stepping down into the kitchen. She was a remarkable woman. She could have been anywhere between thirty-five and sixty, and the perfection of her well-tended appearance was like an impenetrable suit of armor. No one and nothing scared Peter Madsen, but Isobel Lambert came close.
“Then why are you here?”
“I wanted to make certain you were all right. It’s the first mission you’ve ever failed to complete, and I was a bit…concerned.”
“You think I’m going to blow my brains out because I failed to do the same to Harry Van Dorn? Not likely.”
“I was more concerned you might decide to resign.”
“I’m touched,” he drawled.
“Surely you don’t expect my concern to be personal, do you? We’ve both been in this business a long time, and we know the mortality rate. My job is to make certain the Committee is well staffed, and since Bastien left you’re the best we have.”
He raised an eyebrow and she laughed her light, silvery laugh. “I’m sorry,” she amended. “Since Bastien left you’re the only good operative we have left.”
“I’m not resigning,” he said after a moment. “I’m not really equipped to do anything else, am I? I can kill. I’m certain there will always be a job opening at the Committee for that.”
“Everyone has a failed mission now and then, Peter. You’ll be a better operative now, knowing you can fail.”
“You make it sound like I lost my erection. ‘Don’t worry, dear, it happens to everyone,’” he said, mockery hiding his anger.
“Well, metaphorically, isn’t that exactly what happened?”
“Metaphorically, I fucked up. I didn’t pick up on the fact that Renaud had turned, and I waited too long to go back and make certain Van Dorn was dead.” He knew why he had hesitated. He didn’t want to run into Genevieve Spenser. He didn’t want to find her dead, he didn’t want to find her alive and have to decide what to do about it. He left her fate in her own hands, and he hadn’t wanted to have to take it back.
Madame Lambert simply shrugged. “Everyone screws up occasionally—I trust you more as a fallible human being than an efficient robot.”
“Then I did it all for you,” he said lightly.
“Besides, you don’t need to worry. Harry Van Dorn is well in hand. This operation has always been too big to have it rest with one plan. We already have someone in situ, and when the time is right, Van Dorn will be taken care of. Chalk it up to a learning experience.”
Peter resisted the impulse to snort. One didn’t snort at Madame Lambert. “You set my mind at ease. So why don’t you tell me why you’re really here.”
Isobel Lambert smiled her perfect, ageless smile. There wasn’t a line, a wrinkle, a mark of character on her exquisite, porcelain face, and he wondered how many face-lifts she’d had to keep her skin like that. Just another tool of the trade. “To tell you to take a couple of months off. You’ve been working nonstop since the fall of 2001, and you need a break.”
“Not particularly.”
“Your wife left you.”
“I know that. It was more than two years ago, and we were never well suited. She’s already remarried.”
